The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) estimated that the total population will reach 92 million by 8 pm on Thursday, less than one year after having reached the 90 million milestone on December 6, 2015.

In June, Egypt’s population reached 91 million people, marking an increase of 1 million people in six months. In the following six months, the population has increased another 1 million people.

“The population growth limits the state’s ability to make tangible change in living standards, since the population growth is not proportionate to the current economic growth,” CAPMAS said on Wednesday.

In September, Minister of Planning and Administrative Development Ashraf El-Araby announced that the poverty rate in Egypt has risen from 26 to 27.8 percent, saying that in absence of reform procedures, the rate would have reached 33 percent.

Egypt, which is the Arab world’s most populous nation, has witnessed a ballooning population over the past several decades. Meanwhile, its poverty levels have also been on the rise, with the World Bank estimating in 2010 that a quarter of the country’s population lives in poverty.

In 2015, Egypt’s population growth rate was 2.4 percent, which is five times higher that of developed countries and double that of developing countries, according to CAPMAS.

Cairo alone holds 9.51 million of Egypt’s total population, making it the most populous governorate in the country.

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